Law School Anedote: Nukes

At law, an anonymous or unknown man is called “John Doe.” I have used the name “John Doe” in this anecdote because I can’t verify it. John Doe told it to me himself, but it might be a big whopper.

            John Doe was a law school classmate who was a pugnacious little guy with a problem with authority. There was a domestic violence restraining order out against him, and he lost his DUI case when the judge who had given him a break, on the condition that he stay away from booze, walked into the cocktail lounge, saw him, came to his table, picked up his glass, sniffed, tasted, and said "Report directly to jail on Monday morning."

      John Doe  said that he had been a nuclear engineer employed by the federal government. He became concerned about the proposed siting of nuclear power plants in areas of California that were riddled with seismic faults. He began going into communities that were being studied for sitings, and teaching the locals how to effectively oppose the nukes proposed for their back yards. When he was found out, the government implemented a cautious process of having him fired from his civil service job. He was not removed from the job in the interim, but was given nothing to do. He said that he would spend his time buzzing his building on his Harley with the muffler cut out.

            Then one day, he learned that a team of “five star generals” was coming to the site to inspect a model of their nuclear facility. He said the model alone was a million-dollar project.  The night before, he sneaked into the facility.  And what the generals saw the next day was a model studded all over with super-glued pairs of plastic animals, like the troupe that was herded aboard Noah’s ark.